


past lives

by casdoms (moffwithhishead)



Category: Supernatural
Genre: Established Castiel/Dean Winchester, M/M, Past Cassie Robinson/Dean Winchester, Post-Season/Series 15, pretend 15.20 didn't happen and cas got brought back
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-01-03
Updated: 2021-01-03
Packaged: 2021-03-14 00:06:50
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,065
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28537089
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/moffwithhishead/pseuds/casdoms
Summary: Dean huffs, shaking his head, “I tried that once.” He offers her a small smile, “Didn’t stick.”“But he did,” Cassie asks after a moment, nudging her head towards where Cas is standing across the field.
Relationships: Cassie Robinson & Dean Winchester, Castiel/Dean Winchester, cassie robinson/OMC
Comments: 6
Kudos: 190





	past lives

**Author's Note:**

> inspired by a tweet I saw the other day that was like "imagine if dean and cassie reunited in 2020" and my brain was immediately like BUT CAS AND CASSIE WOULD BE BEST FRIENDS, AND DEAN WOULD BE HORRIFIED BY HOW MUCH THEY HAVE IN COMMON??? but I didn't have the brain power to write a whole thing. I did manage to get this down, so here, have this. :) 
> 
> set as if the show didn't end with dean dying. so this is like, cassie calls them in on a case in 2021.

Cassie pokes his ankle with her boot, startling Dean out of his post-case haze.

He jumps a little and barely misses hitting his head on the trunk, “Shit, hey, you, uh-“

Dean laughs, shifting nervously, suddenly feeling like a kid again. It’s not like it was back then, or even when he came back with Sam a couple years later, but Cassie still has that effect on him. Makes him feel off-balance, like he’s got something to prove. Someone to impress.

She smiles, clearly resisting the urge to laugh at his panic, “Didn’t mean to scare you.”

Dean guffaws, “Whaaat? _Me_? Scared?” He brings a hand up to his neck, trying to feign a casualness he hasn’t felt since she walked into their case a couple days ago.

Thankfully, like she always has, Cassie takes pity on him and saves Dean from being an idiot.

“You know, I never really thought you’d settle down,” she says, her tone gentle, like she doesn’t want to scare him away.

Dean tries to lean against the Impala but his hand misses, and he barely catches himself so he doesn’t slam his face into the car.

“Me?” He tries once his feet are under him again, “I don’t know if I’d call this settling down.”

Cassie rolls her eyes, smiling, “We both knew you were never going to be a ‘white picket fence, 2.5 kids, wife, dog and a minivan’ kind of guy.”

Dean huffs, shaking his head, “I tried that once.” He offers her a small smile, “Didn’t stick.”

“But he did,” Cassie asks after a moment, nudging her head towards where Cas is standing across the field.

He’s talking to the victim while Sam deals with the cops. He’s kneeling down in front of the kid, and it’s clear from Castiel’s posture that he’s trying to comfort him.

It makes Dean’s chest ache with something he hasn’t put a word to yet.

“Yeah...” Dean chuckles quietly, “He did.”

When he looks back at Cassie, she’s got that same goopy smile Sam usually has when he’s talking about Eileen.

Dean shifts nervously, feeling self-conscious, “What?”

She grins at him, laughing, “I’m really happy for you, Dean. Love looks good on you.”

The tips of his ears turn pink and he shoves his hands into his coat pockets, embarrassment coloring his whole demeanor.

“It’s, uh...” he licks his lips, “It’s not -“

Cassie levels him with a look that’s clearly supposed to mean ‘I’m not stupid, Dean.’

He feels 19 again.

Cassie was his first real love, and she was the first person who ever... _saw_ him. Saw Dean for what he was - who he was - and called him out on his bullshit, didn’t let him get away with pushing her away because he was scared. She was the first person who ever took the time to get to know who Dean was as a person. Not Dean as a hunter or a son or a big brother, but as a person.

She was the first one to get him to admit out loud that maybe he liked Harrison Ford in a more than hero worship way.

There’s no point in lying to her, not about this.

So, Dean laughs at himself, because he’s a grown man who shares his bed with Castiel more nights than he doesn’t, but he’s still too scared to say it back.

“I haven’t told him yet,” he finally says. “I... I, uh. I’ve never really said it.”

Cassie smiles, coming closer to lean against the Impala with him, “You said it to me.”

Dean turns just enough to smile at her, apologetic, “I knew I was going to leave eventually.”

She mirrors the look he’s giving her and shrugs, “I know. But you meant it.”

And he did. Some part of him will probably always love Cassie.

Dean squeezes her hand for lack of anything better to say, because he’s not sure if he could ever apologize enough.

“You deserve it, you know,” she says after a few minutes. “You deserve to be happy. To have someone to come home to after you save the world again...” Cassie squeezes his hand back, “Someone to be there for you, like you are for everyone else.”

Something about the way she says it makes tears start to pool in Dean’s eyes.

He doesn’t know how he got so lucky, for people to actually care about him. Not because they have to, but because they just do.

“Yeah,” he says, his voice cracking. “He does. He is.”

They’re not perfect, obviously.

Hell, Cas just came back from the dead for the umpteenth time and their kinda-kid is God. They’ve hurt each other more than anyone else has. They’re not always there for each other, even when they’ve wanted to be. The universe seems to do everything it can to keep them apart.

But the fact that Cas hasn’t pushed him since he came back… The fact that Cas hasn’t pushed him once in the last ten years they’ve known each other, he’s just -

“We’re trying,” Dean sighs. “Still figuring out how to do this.”

Cassie huffs, “Relationships are hard. You should’ve seen me when Jake proposed.”

Dean turns to look at her, thankful for the distraction, “You run?”

She rolls her eyes and shoves him gently.

“Please Dean, some of us do know how to process our emotions.”

The EMT’s are about to pack their victim up, and Cas is standing up to show them his FBI badge.

Cassie sighs, “I was scared. He knows everything about me... I’m not used to people having the power to hurt me.”

And yeah, that makes sense. Cassie was always good at knocking Dean off balance, making him be honest, but she was very good at playing shit close to the chest.

Dean wasn’t even sure that she liked him back the first two times they hooked up.

“I didn’t run, but I might as well have,” she amends after a moment. “I said yes, and then I went out of town for a couple days… didn’t answer my phone. Didn’t talk to him for like a week."

That though, that doesn’t really sound like the Cassie he knows.

Dean turns completely, facing her even though she’s still looking out across the field.

“So what’d you do?”

She smiles, her eyes going soft with the memory.

“I told him that I was scared… I loved him, and I wanted to marry him, but I was scared.”

Cassie sighs, shifting against the Impala, “He was hurt at first, you know… girl you’ve been with for years tell you that she’s scared to marry you – kinda shitty.”

Dean huffs, shoving his hands in his pockets.

“But we talked,” she starts again after a moment. “He reminded me that getting married wasn’t going to change anything about our relationship. Who we are, together and apart… it wouldn’t change with a marriage license.”

Somewhere in the distance, there’s fireworks going off.

It feels like the world settles for a few moments before Dean hears his own voice.

“I’ve been trying to tell him for years… I’m, y’know,” he smiles at Cassie. “Not really good at the romance thing.”

Again, she rolls her eyes. “You were good at it with me.”

Dean ducks his head, feeling shy, “Yeah, but…”

“It’s different,” Cassie finishes for him, so he doesn’t have to say it. “High stakes.”

He can’t help himself, Dean snorts.

“Yeah, well, I’m not 20 anymore… kinda hoping that if we do this, that, y’know –“ The words get caught in his throat for a moment, a little too big and too honest to say out loud.

“That he sticks?” She offers.

“Yeah… and that I’m…” His face contorts, not sure where this is coming from. “Enough. That I’m worth it, I guess.”

Cassie sighs, turning to look Dean in the eye, but he hasn’t stopped looking at his boots.

“Hey, Winchester. Look at me.”

Reluctantly, he does. She’s smiling at him, and Dean’s heart melts a little.

“You’re allowed to be happy, Dean. You’re allowed to have good things, to love someone. Get out of your own head and maybe you’ll see what the rest of us do.”

Dean wants to run away from the conversation, because he knows all of this – knows how Cas looks at him, knows what Cas would do for him, what he’d do for Cas, even. And still, he just feels like any minute now somebody’s going to rip the rug out from under him.

One of them is gonna die again. Cas is going to realize this was all a terrible mistake, and he doesn’t love Dean. Cas is going to be called back to heaven and never want to return. Dean’s going to say something to fuck it up, to scare him off, to hurt him again.

Sam had tried talking to him about this the other day.

Had tried reminding Dean that there’s always going to be another shoe waiting to drop, somebody waiting in the wings to do the rug thing. Tried reminding him that Cas is never going to leave him again.

It didn’t really work.

Cas finally walks up next to them before Dean has to come up with a response. He offers them a smile, “Cassie, thank you for all your help with this case. We couldn’t have done it without you.”

He sounds so damn earnest, so fucking sincere, and Dean kinda loves him.

She offers Cas a genuine smile, “Aw Castiel, you sweet talker.” Cassie shrugs, feigning modesty, “It was nothing. Finding this case in the papers, tracking down Dean’s number, basically handing you guys a solved case on a platter…”

Dean rolls his eyes, finally standing up straight again, “Yeah, yeah, you’re awesome, we suck.”

He offers Cas a small, private smile, and there are most definitely not butterflies when it’s returned.

Cassie is laughing at him when Sam comes back over finally, the two of them falling into a conversation about how she found all this information out.

Dean pulls Cas over to the driver’s side with him by the coat sleeve, trying to be casual about it.

Judging by the way Cassie meets his eye with a wink and offers to show Sam the database on her laptop, which is in her car, it wasn’t very casual.

Castiel follows easily, because of course he does, and Dean’s chest swells.

“Hey,” Dean finally says when his back is against the car again.

Castiel smiles, his whole face softening, “Hello, Dean.”

Dean drops his hand from the sleeve into Castiel’s waiting, open hand and harrumphs, “How’s the kid?”

If he’s surprised at the open display of affection, he doesn’t show it.

“He’s alright,” he offers with a sigh. “Traumatized more than anything.”

Dean snorts, squeezing Castiel’s hand, “I’d say that’s good, but.” It’s not.

Castiel takes a step forward, the toes of their shoes bumping together now, “Are you alright?”

Something howls off in the distance. The last of the patrol cars are pulling out of the field too, the night seeming to come to life around them.

“Yeah, I…” Dean frowns, finally looking back up at Cas, “Just… you know, right?”

Oh great, real romantic Dean.

Castiel just squints at him, the rest of his expression carefully blank, “I… know many things. Are you referring to something specific…?”

It’s a joke. It’s a dumb, stupid, dry as the fucking Sahara joke, and it startles a laugh out of him.

Dean can’t take his eyes off of Cas, not when the moon is hitting him like that.

Something occurs to Dean and it feels like getting slammed in the chest.

“You know that I love you,” he manages to choke out, somewhere between a statement and a question.

“…Right?”

Instead of answering like a normal person, Castiel leans forward, pulling Dean into a kiss.

He thinks that it was maybe supposed to be a gentle kiss, a little slower and less intense, but Dean’s got tears in his eyes and a streetlight pops nearby by the time they pull apart.

“Yes,” he finally says. “Yes, Dean, I know that you love me.”

It takes a beat for his body to gather enough air to speak again, “Uh…” Dean clears his throat, the hand that had previously found its way into Cas’s jacket falling to his waist. “Good. Just… checking.”

**Author's Note:**

> find me on tumblr at deansmom


End file.
